How can I use the .NET 2.0 XSLT engine from a .NET 1.1 application?

Question

I'm working on a .NET 1.1 assembly that does a number of huge XSL transforms. This is beginning to cause memory problems. I therefore want to use the XSLT engine in the .NET 2.0 framework, since I know it is much more efficient and less resource intensive. Note: Upgrading the .NET 1.1 assembly to .NET 2.0 is NOT an option at this time, due to time and budget constraints (beyond my control).

I've written a .NET 2.0 assembly that can do XSL transforms, and exposed it as a COM+ interop object. When I load this object from the .NET 1.1 assembly, it loads fine, but as soon as I load the XSL transform, an exception occurs, and it doesn't contain ANY useful information as to what went wrong.

Interestingly, if I call a simpler, unrelated test method in the .NET 2.0 assembly (like a method that just writes to the eventlog instead of doing a transform), it seems to work.

Any ideas on alternative approaches? Or is there something obvious I'm doing wrong?

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Answer 1

I'd suspect that COM interop alone kills any performance enhancement you'd get out of the upgrading the XSLT to 2.0. Probably also has something to do with the useless exception.

Have you tried running the 1.1 assembly under 2.0? See this page for instructions on how to target a specific version of the framework. I'm not terribly familiar with the underlying XSLT engines, but just switching the target might get you 2.0's toys there, and it will definitely get you 2.0 performance.

Answer 2

Consider Process.Start() on the msxsl.exe tool. It does not use .NET. Or, if you are doing COM interop anyway, consider MSXML - it does XSL too, and it's FAST.